Self sufficiency the road to poverty? | Page 2 | General Homesteading Discussion | Forums

i just want my young family to have good clean safe food to eat to keep their minds sharp and bodies healthy so they can tackle the challenges ahead. living on a small island in the middle of nowhere makes that very difficult as nothing is produced locally, literally everything is imported and at a huge price. i was just talking to my old ladies about this yesterday, if i wanted to provide just 2 avocados each day for my family of 6 (current) for one year here, it will cost me approximately 3k usd. i don't know about you guys but that just seems absurd to me.

wish i could man. i live directly on the beach in the gulf of thailand. salt in the air, every three months or so we get strong winds and then there's always the monsoon season. i have grown things here that we don't think have ever been grown here before, cantaloupes, connecticut field pumpkins, jalapenos etc and to top it all off, it's a small tropical island 5 star resort area so every square inch has a high price. nobody tries their hand at agriculture here because building and selling a couple of villas or bungalows is a lot faster and cleaner.

on my land up north i am planning 1 rai (2.5 rai are about equal to 1 acre) for an orchard. avocados are just beginning to get noticed here so the market is huge. i can get them up north from an ag station about an hour away from my property for 100 baht each, these are grafted and 4 years from producing. mangos, figs, olives and apple will make up the bulk of the 16 trees i've allotted space for in that 1rai. i'm ready to make the transition, i'm almost looking for an out but i've got a good thing going here as well.

ANYTHING is possible.

In the late 90s I worked in a hydroponic greenhouse outside Steamboat Springs Colorado. We were producing 80-100 cases of the best tomatoes you have EVER eaten, plus amazing herbs & cherry tomatoes that tasted like candy. We were doing this when it was 100 degrees outside and when there was 5 feet of snow on the ground. The amount of production was staggering and we sold to the high end chefs & boutique grocery stores. 80% of the work was done by just one man-Me.

If I wanted to generate income in your situation (as opposed to gettting self sufficient) i'd take a hard look at what the most expensive items on the island and try to produce it. We could have sold triple what we were if we could have produced it.

Food for thought